Is sportsbetting mostly luck or skill?

[WVU]

You didnt create your own luck,you created your own skill.
Why do you think 98% of gamblers lose year in.Do you think they all had bad luck.I cant believe this is even an arguement.It shows me how sharp a group we have here.
Steak Tartar has been around,hes old school,hes got good common sense.
Anyone who disagrees with him or me,is part of the 98%.The 98%,that lose year in year out.
I cant believe you think 90% is luck.UNBELIEVABLE.

My accomplishments were not luck at all. I used my own resourcefulness and turned the tables on the house. I can attribute my success to being ruthless.

I am mainly talking about others. Winning gamblers here who are not ruthless and/or excellent line shoppers would have to have a good bit of luck to come out ahead. You cannot overcome 10 and 20 cent lines by just being great (lucky) at picking games. You need information, a good sense of public perception, and an assortment of well funded accounts.

So let me put it this way, If you are lucky then you don't have to be good to win but if you are good, you still need a bit of luck to win. Having the best lines consistently will most likely win in the long run, but you still need to be somewhere near expectation. If you are picking winners at a rate 2 standard deviations below the average then you will not be a winner no matter how resourceful and talented you are. And conversely, if you are picking winners 2 standard deviations above the norm then you are winning even if you are getting the worst lines consistently.

 

[SSI]

Ice is right about one thing....

give me one game, anything can happen...... Luck is very important..

give me 2000 games, Luck will not be a factor, the breaks will even out...

the Longterm winner, is a winner by skill alone........... if you disagree with this statement, your nuts.....

 

[VIEJODINOSAUR]

Skill, Preparation, Knowledge, and hard work....beats luck anytime, anywhere....

 

[Iceman]

well..like I said these were just some of the game that I gave as example... I can go on and on.... and books that I play at does not allow me to buy points on half games....

I dont want you to buy half points. I want you to be in enough books and put enough time into this to look and hopefully find -4's when -4.5 look like they are the only thing out there.

 

[billpapa]

Dcspride wrote

Skill is 90%??? are you serious man?? yday, I bet on NY Knicks 1half -4.5..... NY is leading by 6 points and with 1.2 seconds left Minnesota put lay up in.... so you are saying you expect this to happen?? well, this could be 10% of luck went wrong way to me right.... what about last weekend on NFL, my friend bet on 1st quarter under 7.5 (forgot who played this game) and with 0 second left on clock one team put a TD and lose the bet....I could go on and on with these ridiculous lost my friend and I had this past 2 weeks..... so I don't know how skill is 90%...it's more like 10-20% of skill and 80-90% of luck


I agree with you! I suggested to the NFL a long time ago that they shorten each quarter by 1 second. They would not listen; they said something about betting luck or skill. I don't remember which.

 

[copper]

I am admitting that I am a novice. I just started placing my first offshore bets this summer. I also DONT believe it is luck. Game to game people could get lucky or unlucky. Over time, money managment, systems, trends, stats, shopping lines, are all things that PROS know lead to long term profit. The average player doesn't do this and therefore loses in the long run. PROS can tell when a line is off and make advantage plays. The average Joe picks a team based on how good or badd they looked last game.

 

[ThePig+]

Fish, as usual I read you loud and clear.

Over the years, I created my own luck by only playing while at an advantage

how does one decipher that advantage though? it cannot be quantified.
I'm a 55% player over a large sample size(nearly 2000 wagers) but I cannot mathematically prove that I've had an advantage in games where I'm going against a spread.

Am I lucky or is it talent? Or have I created my own luck by being talented?

 

[bellyputter]

Billy Walters has middled more games than anyone in the history of sports wagering. When you control the market, skill and luck are about equal.

 

[boatboatboat]

Skill vs Luck

I had NE @-4.5 pre game.


As the 4th Qtr started I bought NE ML at +550.

You tell me?

Luck (bad) on the pre game bet, and Skill to off set some of the loss by taking advantage of +550 during live betting?

We all think we are better then we really are............

 

[jwunderdog]

Someone winning 6 out of 10 games is luck. Some one winning 1100 out of 2000 games is skilled. Over a small sample size luck has a lot to do with outcome, over a large sample size the "luck" gets evened out both bad and good.

 

[WVU]

how does one decipher that advantage though? it cannot be quantified.
I'm a 55% player over a large sample size(nearly 2000 wagers) but I cannot mathematically prove that I've had an advantage in games where I'm going against a spread.

Am I lucky or is it talent? Or have I created my own luck by being talented?

My advantage was measured by playing with a bonus. If I was wagering for a sportsbook bonus, I would assume I would hit 50% at normal juice and calculate from there.

 

[VIEJODINOSAUR]

HUGE BANKROLL doesn't hurt either...or a ton of credit...

 

[valdosta]

Picking the right side of a game is 50/50, largely. Buying your side at the right price, at the right number, at the right time - with reasonable consistency - is skill.

imo.

IMO that is the most important thing in betting and is definantely a skill. It's why it drives me absolutely crazy when the poker players try to use the skill argument.

 

[MrJ]

You didnt create your own luck,you created your own skill.

The phrase isn't meant to be taken literally.

I would call that resourcefulness over skill

I would say that resourcefulness is a skill.

I cant believe you think 90% is luck

Actually our results are 100% luck. Our performance is always the result of variance. We use our skill to alter the probabilities which in turn influences the probabilities of our longterm performance, but in the end we are all subject to variance.

the Longterm winner, is a winner by skill alone........... if you disagree with this statement, your nuts.....

SSI, you are totally ignoring variance. You can't win by skill alone, you also need variance not to be awful. While most skillful bettors will be successful in the longrun, there are also some who got wiped out simply because of variance. I think knowing how vulnerable you are - no matter how great your skill - is a very healthy perspective for a bettor to have.

Someone winning 6 out of 10 games is luck. Some one winning 1100 out of 2000 games is skilled. Over a small sample size luck has a lot to do with outcome, over a large sample size the "luck" gets evened out both bad and good.

Ice knows that so I don't think that is the question he is asking. "Luck" doesn't even out as a sample gets larger, it just regresses to the mean most of the time.

I am not sure that most of us are smart enough to CONSISTENTLY beat the consesnus line as we all have the same information at our disposal.

This is true, yet most people on these forums try to pick "winners" instead of worrying about the price. Often either side can be the "right" side, it just depends on the price at which you bet. Unfortunately (fortunate for some), most are betting the "wrong" side as the price at which they bet is not profitable.

 

[PPLTPPPLTP]

Absolutely mostly luck with a sprinkling of skill. Much like poker

Id say mostly skill with a sprinkle of luck.. specially poker...

 

[whalewager]

half and half

 

[bellyputter]

I middled four games on Saturday. Virg-W For, Mich-Mich St, Tex-Ok St, and LSU-Ala. While it took some skill getting certain #s, basically it was dumb ass luck the way those four games finished.